Ajanta, Ellora and Nasik visit

1.9.09
4:30pm

I'm on the bus from Nasik back to Pune. The Maharashtran countryside is beautiful, full of cornfields, grape vineyards around Nasik, lots of trees and hills called the western ghats. The ghats are not so much rolling hills as they are cliffs on three sides, they appear to be granite - wonder if the climbing is any good?

1.5.09 Aurangabad - Ellora
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I caught the bus around 7am from Pune to Aurangabad. I met a young woman on the bus who lives near Aurangabad, she's a biologist, originally from Delhi, working for Monsanto. We arrived around noon. Upon stepping off the bus, I was surrounded by all these autorickshaws trying to take me to a hotel .. and I persistently said I'll walk. The girl from Delhi asked if I needed help or wanted to get dropped off anywhere - seeing as I was being troubled by the autos - I said, no worries I'll figure it out. I asked if she knew which direction the railway station was - and she said, `NO, don't go there'! her eyes wide with horror. She then rattled off some nice sounding inn down the street that she said would be nice for me - I said thanks and proceeded on my way to the railway station. I had an extremely light bag, and ~2.5km is not much when you're used to walking + don't have anywhere to be in a hurry - right? Gives you time to think about useless things like the meaning of life :-) ..

I realised that the only people that really walk in India are those that can't afford a car, a scooter, or the local auto / city bus - so basically the really poor people. And this also means that most cities are not very pedestrian friendly, as in no sidewalks, really dusty and dirty and so forth - because of course, these folks don't really have representation in the govt and so making sidewalks and the city more walking friendly is not on the agenda.

I stopped by the tourism office to get info about the caves, met some backpackers as I was stepping out. The were staying at Tourist Home though heading over to Hotel Shree Maya for lunch; they said Tourist Home was inexpensive and clean so I too headed there. For the next two days I stayed at Tourist Home and ate my meals at Shree Maya which has a lovely dining area with big couches to chill. They also have a free wireless. After getting a room in Tourist Home, I too walked over to Shree Maya and met one of the taxi guys who was offering me a tour at the bus stop, Muhammad - after the bus stop, he must've gone to the train station, where he had managed to find some French tourists and was taking then to Ellora in an hour. He asked if I'd like to join so we could share the cost.

That's how I met Alex and Aurelie and we travelled together for the next two days. They're from Paris, Aurelie is a nurse and Alex is a night watchman - nice people. Though we had a bit of a language barrier and I had to continually be reminded to speak slowly, we managed to have interesting conversations nonetheless. We visited Ellora and the city of Aurangabad that evening.

Ellora
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These temples are caves carved into a cliff side about 30km from Aurangabad. They are quite stunning with enormous sculptures and intricate carvings. Most of the temples are Buddhist though some of the latter ones are Hindu and Jain. They were carved between 2nd BC and 7th or 8th AD - amazing to see what the people back in the day managed to accomplish without modern tools.

1.6.09 Aurangabad - Ajanta
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The Ajanta caves are also similar to Ellora in that they were carved by Buddhists during 2nd BC to about 8th AD. These are bigger and looking from one side along the cliffs you can just imagine this bustling city in its prime. The caves contain sculptures and paintings, and are situated near a gorge and beautiful gardens. The archaeological survey of India has done a great job in restoring these, setting up accent lighting, and organising access to the caves so as to preserve this place for future generations.

1.7.09 Aurangabad - lazy day
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Since Hotel Shree Maya has wireless in the eating area and there are only two trains to Nasik, one early in the morning the the other in the afternoon, I decided to take an extra day to hang out here. My friends are catching the train to Hyderabad at 9 on 1.7.08 - I took them to watch Ghajini, at least the first half. It was their first Bollywood movie :-) - maybe not the best choice, but that's the only one that was playing locally.

All the folks at Hotel Shree Maya were very nice to me. I think they're used to foreign backpackers so perhaps they were just being hospitable to a backpacker who spoke good Hindi! In any case, in the morning, the breakfast cook would wish me good morning, ask how I was doing etc.

1.8.09 - off to Nasik
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On the 8th, I caught the 6am train to Nasik and was in Nasik by 9am. I boarded to local bus, came to Panchvati which is where one of the Hotel's listed in my book is located (Abhishek). This is a very nice place, locally owned and run. It is inexpensive, clean, with good food and very friendly staff. Nasik has a lot of historical places associated with Ramayana and thus a lot of temples. I wandered around the temples in Panchvati for part of the day.

Nasik:
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Stone carved ancient temples,
bustling bazaar on Godavari banks.

An economy student,
studying on the temple steps,
A mass of humanity:
bathing, washing, cleaning;
practising their faith.

They do not see the filthy river,
only the sacred river.

Ancient temple at every corner,
how old are they,
nobody knows: very old.

They are not followers of history,
only followers of faith.

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Nasik is also the wine growing region of India, so I took the evening to go visit Sula vineyards about 8km outside the city. Wine making is relatively new in India, though the wines we tasted were all really good - of course, I'm not a big expert on wine, but I liked them. It is a beautiful area, with the winery surrounded by fields of grapes. The young kid doing the tasting and giving the tour was definitely into wine and interested in his craft, which was nice to see. I imagine I looked a bit out of place in my dirty cargo pants, t-shirt and backpack.